


dean's sammy

by deanssammy (babylxxrry)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Anxiety, Coping, Dean Winchester Takes Care of Sam Winchester, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protective Dean Winchester, Reminiscing, but like implied and non-sexual, i can't believe that's a fucking tag, questionable information about rearing babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 06:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12811446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babylxxrry/pseuds/deanssammy
Summary: sam's having a rough time of it, and dean does his best to help.





	dean's sammy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oneofthreenerds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneofthreenerds/gifts).



> holy fucking what now i'm on a spn/spn rpf roll and i'm not sure what to think of it lmao but here's one of my absolute favorite tropes -- dean taking care of his sammy.
> 
> uh this was less sloppy than my past few which is nice
> 
> dedicated to sophie and ela because i love you both and there's no way i'll ever thank you enough for introducing me to spn

Dean hasn’t woken up like this in years. He lies still in the front seat of the Impala, listening carefully for tell-tale sounds from the backseat. He starts to think he was wrong, that he was just hearing things, but no. It’s there again. It’s a quiet whimper, muffled in fabric.

Dean peeks into the backseat, and he’s greeted with a sight that breaks his heart. Sam’s curled away from him, into the back of the seats, and even in the dim glow of cheap neon signs from the motel in front of them, Dean can see him trembling like he hasn’t since he was little. Nightmare. Probably paired with some kind of panic attack.

“Sam?” Dean says softly, and Sam doesn’t react. “Sam?”

Nothing.

“Sammy?” And, well, that’s interesting. Sam stiffens just a tiny bit, and Dean takes it as a sign that he’s on the right track. “Sammy, you alright?”

Sam shakes his head once, a tiny movement only Dean could’ve seen.

“Hey, hey, Sammy, breathe for me,” Dean says, sitting up fully.

Sam shakes his head again, more vehemently this time. “Can’t,” he whispers out, and Dean curses under his breath. This is considerably worse than it’s been for a long time. They need to be somewhere where Dean can take care of him properly, can move around him and hold him properly.

“Sammy. I’m going to leave the car for two minutes. Can you sit up and put a jacket on while I’m gone?”

There’s a beat of nothing before Sam shrugs, and Dean takes it as the closest to a yes he’ll get right now. He gets out of the car without another word and strides hastily to the front desk of the motel, ringing the little bell impatiently while the disheveled clerk stumbles out from the back room.

“Room for the night, please, single king.”

He thinks he might’ve accidentally slipped on too much of the federal agent drawl, because the clerk’s eyes widen and he shoves a keycard over the top of the counter, stammering out a price that Dean doesn’t hear.

“Thanks.” Dean slides a fifty over and hopes it covers. They’ll be out of here by tomorrow morning, anyways. He just needs a place to calm Sam down and sleep.

When he comes back out to the car, he can see Sam sitting up in the backseat. Good.

“Sam?” Dean asks, opening the door.

Sam looks up at him, eyes wide and lower lip caught in his teeth. He looks so young it makes Dean’s breath catch.

“Dee?”

Oh _fuck_. It clicks for Dean all of a sudden. They’ve been having a damn stressful time of it lately, between a particularly frustrating hunt and trying to settle into the bunker and everything else, and this is Sam’s old coping method for when it’s too much. He regresses, at least to an extent, but it hasn’t happened for a few years. Damnit. This would’ve been better dealt with at the bunker, where they’re 100% safe, but this will have to do.

“It’s me, Sammy,” Dean says carefully, watching Sam and trying to get a read on exactly how far back he’s gone. “We’re gonna go inside, okay?”

Sam nods hesitantly, and Dean breathes a sigh of relief. He takes Sam’s hand and leads him inside, finding their room without too much difficulty. Sam sits on the bed and watches him bustle around the room, setting up wards and salt lines with practiced ease. Once that’s done, Dean turns his full attention to Sam.

“Sammy, you okay?” Dean asks, coming to crouch in front of Sam.

“Hurts,” Sam says quietly, pressing a hand to his chest. “Can’t breathe. But breathing.”

And if Dean had been anyone else, he would have been completely thrown off, but he’s Dean. He’s been interpreting Sam-speak since he was babbling his very first word (it’d been _Dean_ , but pronounced as _Dee_ ), and right now, it’s no different. He knows Sam means that he’s physically breathing, but he doesn’t feel like he is, doesn’t feel like he _can_.

“Hey. Sammy. Look at me.” Dean waits until Sam meets his eyes, still so wide and teary, and he just wants to wrap his Sammy up in a blanket and a hug and rock him to sleep like he used to.

“I’ve got you, baby, you’re okay, Sammy. We’re safe here. I know you’re scared, but I’m here, okay?”

Sam bites his lip harder, and Dean’s hand itches to come up and pull it out, but he can’t until he’s sure Sam’s okay with being touched.

“Sammy baby, is it okay if I touch you?”

Sam nods once, small but apparent. Dean sighs in relief and climbs up onto the bed next to Sam, kicking his boots off and opening his arms for his brother. Sam slumps against his chest, and Dean holds him tight, prodding and poking until Sam’s curled into a tight ball in his hold. Sam’s considerably taller and broader than he used to be, but Dean feels him shift until his ear is pressed over Dean’s heart. Dean wants to cry when he remembers the way he used to pull Sam close every night and manhandle him until his head rested over his chest. He remembers he’d read that babies slept better on their parents’ chests because they could hear their breathing and heartbeats like when they were in the womb. Maybe he wasn’t mom or dad, but if he could help his Sammy sleep, he’d do it.

Dean strokes Sam’s hair gently, tugging at each knot until it falls in smooth, soft waves. He realizes he’s started rocking them gently side to side, and drops a kiss onto Sam’s head.

Sam makes a little sound, trying to crush himself impossibly closer to Dean’s chest. Dean looks down at his hands, and realizes he’s clenching and unclenching his fists slowly. He can’t be sure, but if his memory serves him correctly, that’s how little Sammy used to try and show that he “wasn’t all put together, like when you’re putting a puzzle together and you try to make a piece fit but it’s not right? But it looks right but it’s not? That’s me, Dee, that’s me.”

Dean doesn’t remember exactly what he used to do, so he lets his gut take over, and he pulls them backwards onto the bed, flipping them over so he can lie on top of Sam’s back.

“This okay, Sammy?” Dean murmurs into Sam’s hair, and Sam wriggles for a moment, flipping himself over so Dean’s lying on his chest.

“Better,” Sam whispers, closing his eyes. He’s got a little furrow between his brows, and Dean reaches up to smooth it out, cupping Sam’s cheek and rubbing gentle circles into his cheekbone, tilting his forehead down to rest against Sam’s.

He feels a tug at his shirt, and glances down to see Sam clutching at the back of his shirt.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

“Can we- can you-” Sam starts, then stops, gnawing at his lip. “’s weird. Don’t worry.”

“Hey, Sammy, you can ask anything, okay? I just want you to be okay.”

Sam screws his eyes shut as he blurts out his next words. “I just remember when we used to cuddle shirtless and you’d squish me into the mattress and it’d help because I could feel you right there and I know it’s weird and we’re not kids anymore but I just wanted to know if maybe you’d be okay with it and it’s okay if not-”

“Shhh, little one, that’s okay, here, sit up,” Dean’s quick to shush him, and Sam looks at him with wide eyes. Dean sits up and tugs gently at Sam’s shoulders.

“C’mon, shirt off, baby.”

Sam scrambles to pull his shirt off before he lies back down, and Dean can’t help the self-satisfied piece of him that smiles at the anti-possession tat on his chest. It might be anti-possession, but in a way, it’s possessive as hell—their way of showing that they belong to each other. Once Dean throws his shirt somewhere off the bed, he turns Sam back over, pressing his chest to Sam’s back. This way, he can feel the way Sam’s still shaking a little, but it’s better than it was before. At first he tries to stay slightly off to the side so he won’t completely crush Sam under him, but there’s a little pull on his arm and Sam tries to shift closer. Dean takes the hint and moves more on top of him. Sam sighs heavily, and Dean nuzzles into the nape of his neck. He smells like sweat and gunpowder, but underneath it, he’s still vanilla and baby poweder, pure _Sammy_.

Dean remembers the first time he ever held his baby brother. His parents had told him to be careful, and he was, and Sammy had smelled like baby powder and something unique that Dean now knows as him. He’d seemed so small, so fragile then, and even though he’s grown up to be one hulk of a man, he’s kept that little bit of vulnerability about him, usually in a form only Dean can spot if he’s looking for it. It’s in the way he’ll hunch his shoulders, making himself smaller, when he’s researching a case. It’s in the way he’ll sometimes step just a fraction behind Dean when they’re on unfamiliar doorsteps. It’s in the way he lets Dean take the bed closer to the door, or the side of the bed closer to the door if they have to share, even though they both know Sam’s equally as capable of defending them. It’s in the way he’ll still instinctively reach for Dean’s hand in the middle of the night when he has nightmares.

“Stop thinking,” Sam whispers, and Dean startles just a hair. He spots a tiny smile curling at the corner of Sam’s mouth, and he takes it as a win.

“Sorry. Before we fall asleep, do you wanna take your jeans off?” Dean asks, and Sam shrugs.

“Can you decide, Dee? Still…” Sam brings a hand up and clenches and unclenches his fist, and Dean nods against Sam’s back.

“Sit up, baby boy. Gonna get these off you so you’re more comfortable when we fall asleep, alright?”

Sam lets Dean move him around enough to pulls his jeans off, leaving him in just boxers. Dean stands up long enough to kick his own jeans off before he plasters himself back on Sam. They’re basically as close as they can physically get right now, and Dean suddenly remembers another tidbit of baby-raising information he’d read when he must’ve been five or six. It was something specifically for premature babies, but he’d assumed it applied to any young child, something called _kangaroo care_ , or some shit like that. It was the idea that skin-to-skin contact would help babies relax and sleep better and bond with their parents or something to that effect. Dean remembers the article mentioning something about the release of oxytocin which relaxes the baby, and he distantly wonders if it still works as full-fledged adults. He thinks so.

Sam’s breathing a little easier now. The trembling’s stopped, and his hands aren’t clenched into balls anymore. Dean traces mindless patterns into his bicep, watching the way goosebumps crop up on his skin.

“Dee?” Sam says softly, and Dean’s instantly alert.

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Tell me a story?”

That’s another little Sammy thing. Dean used to regale him with stories of kings and queens and dragons, all made up on the fly. Sam always fell asleep in the middle without fail, but Dean liked to think it was because voices were soothing to his Sammy. He’d never liked quietness.

“Once upon a time, there lived two little boys. Their names were Dean and Sammy, and they loved each other very much. They were brothers, and they went on big adventures everywhere. Everything around them always changed, but the special thing about Dean and Sammy was that they were always there for each other. Dean always protected his Sammy, and Sammy always protected his Dean. Always. Every day and every night. They knew each other so well it was like they shared one soul in two bodies…”

Dean can tell the moment Sam falls asleep because his breathing pattern changes, and it’s only then that he lets himself relax just a fraction.

He realizes how tired he is just moments later, when it slams into him like an express train. He never quite comprehends how much it drains him to always be protecting Sam, and he’s glad most of the time they split protection of each other, because he needs Sam just as much as Sam needs him.

Dean presses one last kiss to the nape of Sam’s neck before he closes his eyes and falls asleep, his body covering Sam’s and pressing him into the mattress.

The morning will find Dean curled tight around Sam’s back because they’ll end up shifting in the middle of the night (they always do), his hand clasped gently over Sam’s. Sam will smile sleepily back at him and Dean will drop a kiss onto his cheek and they’ll talk about last night over breakfast and coffee before they get back on the case. For now, though, they’ll rest and recharge, just them against the world.

 

- _fin.  
_

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment or kudos if you, too, like seeing dean protect sammy bc SAME
> 
> okay it's 2:45am this is an unhealthy pattern i'm gonna go now lmao


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